Supporting Frontline Workers

Speaker 1 0:00

Really the goal here , Roger , is to support frontline workers doing shift work . We're not here to appease people designing rosters . We're not here to tick a box for leaders and managers because sometimes they may be designing it wrong . It's here to help the shift worker manage that as best as possible within those circumstances .

Speaker 2 0:20

Shift work can be brutal , but it doesn't have to be . Welcome to a healthy shift . My name is Roger Sutherland , certified Nutritionist , veteran Law Enforcement Officer and 24-7 Shift Worker for almost four decades . Through this podcast , I aim to educate shift workers using evidence-based methods to not only survive the rigours of shift work but thrive . My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and wellbeing so they have more energy to do the things they love .

Speaker 2 0:52

Enjoy today's show and welcome back to another episode of a Healthy Shift podcast . Today's episode is another guest episode , and this one is someone who I tried to get a few years back , and now we have some exciting news to share Dr Ian Dunican is actually joining us on the podcast today . In this podcast , I try and bring evidence-based strategies to shift work and the best way to thrive and not just literally survive from one shift to the next . Now I want to be quite clear in relation to these evidence-based strategies that it may not actually work for you , but this is what the literature tells us is the best way to go about doing what you are actually doing in your shift working environment , and I would highly suggest that at times , give some of the strategies an actual try , the strategies that are being suggested to you a really good option for you to actually try and then to see how they work for you , because , after all , these are well-researched . Now , dr Ian Dunican is a well-researched person in relation to sleep and performance and , as he highlights in the podcast today , it is very , very important to understand that athletes that are actually working towards performance in their chosen sport are actually applying exactly the same principles that you , the shift worker , will be applying as well . We don't look at athletes and go , oh , they need to do this because they're elite sportsmen . You are an elite shift worker and it's important that people understand that the same principles apply in all humans . For this and this is what's covered in the podcast today , which is a really , really important aspect of it Strategies around shift work .

Speaker 2 3:00

This is Dr Ian Dunican's specialty , and so what I want to do is I'm going to introduce Dr Ian Dunican and he's going to tell us all about where he came from . He's going to talk to you about why he's doing the research that he's doing , and then he's going to tell you about his exciting project , which is really really something else . So , without much further ado , I bring to you Dr Ian Dunican . How are you , ian ? I'm very good . Roger , thanks for having me on . We , as a shift working community are truly humbled to have you on the podcast here . I've tried to track you down and have you on the podcast for the last few years as I've been watching your content and I know that you're going to offer such great value to us today , which is going to be fantastic because you've got some really , really exciting news . But before we get to that , can you tell our shift working community a bit about yourself , who you are and your background ?

Speaker 1 3:54

Yeah , so my name is Ian Dunigan , as you said in the intro , and I'm based in Perth in Western Australia . Now eager listeners will be like that doesn't sound like a West Aussie accent , which it isn't . I've been here for approximately 21 years , came here for three days and that sort of just never left . And yeah , so I obviously Irish originally . I started my career out in the military , so I was an operational soldier infantry unit for five years and had no interest in school or education , just wanted to go out and be GI Joe . After about five years I got sick of lying in the wet and the dirt and I thought , oh , all my mates are graduating from uni , maybe I should have done something else . They're all going out to the bar on a Friday night in a suit while I'm heading off to lie in a ditch . So I moved to Australia with my wife . My wife is from country Victoria . Like I said , we came here for three days and then ended up staying this whole time . I ended up working for about 10 years for a mining company called Rio Tinto , second biggest mining company in the world . I worked on site based up in the Pitterborough . Then I did fly in , fly out for a while . Then I did sort of projects from Perth , traveling up and down , and then finally I went into a global role where I was managing sort of or coordinating the fatigue and human performance work globally and supporting operations around the world . So I got a chance to work across Africa , north America and so on .

Speaker 1 5:10

My background's kind of mixed Undergraduate degrees in safety , then education , postgraduate degrees , one in master's in mine engineering , master's in business , a grad cert in sleep science and then a PhD in sleep and performance . So I left that mining company after 10 years , went back into my PhD , had my midlife crisis before I turned 40 . And so instead of buying a McLaren or Ferrari , I went back to school and then when I finished that , I started the business Melia's Consulting , and that's basically what I've been doing for the last seven or eight years . But I also do research as well . Currently I have a position at the University of Western Australia as a senior research fellow , but my income and all my money is derived from my business and I don't get any funding , so everything is done via through the business . So , yeah , it's a very quick background professionally and then , outside of that background , in long distance running , did ultramarathons for a number of years . Been doing ultra swimming for the last seven or eight years . Also have a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu . Don't like to sit still .

Speaker 2 6:06

I think that's pretty apparent . Not only that , but how ironic it is that you would be an Irishman that would come as far as Perth and then spend a few days there and decide that here we still are after all . This time the place is full of English people , or anyone from that area , isn't it ?

Speaker 1 6:22

It's just , it's worse than it's getting . Roger , I went to the coffee shop that morning and coming back from swimming and I was standing outside a coffee shop and I was going there's something kind of odd here and I tuned into what was happening . The four tables outside the coffee shop were full of Irish people and inside it was two Irish guys having a chat , and so I was like the only person here that's not Irish is the barista . It was like being at home . It was like yeah , that kind of like like this is getting a bit weird now .

Speaker 2 6:44

I know Well , we're the biggest Irish community outside . I think Melbourne as well is very big . I mean , you've been in and out of Melbourne if you was from Victoria , yeah , and I think very , very big Irish community here as well , so you'd certainly feel at home . We're very attuned to the accent here now . So that's fantastic .

Speaker 2 7:02

Now , because of your research and everything that you've done , I'm very huge on fatigue management and health and wellbeing around the shift working space . It's an area that I identified , probably five years ago , as having a massive problem and , like you , instead of going off and buying the Porsche or the McLaren , I also returned to study , to do evidence-based nutrition thinking . Nutrition is actually the problem in the shift work space because everyone's getting fat and that's obviously the reason . That's nothing to do with the reason , is it at all ? And I think , the further that we dig into the convoluted problems that we have around , this desynchronized circadian rhythm is why we have so many problems in the shift working world , which , of course , leads to weight gain and all the cardiovascular disease .

Speaker 2 7:52

So our listeners are predominantly shift workers and I want to really drill in on this , and particularly because you're big on the chronobiology as well as the shift work , but you've got some exciting news in relation to something that you've recently done and I want to give you the platform to talk all about what you've done and let us know for our shift working community what we're doing , roger , is this week , so just before Christmas , we're going to release a book which is available for pre-order , and the book is called A Guide for Sleep , health and Shift Work , which I'm holding up one of my working copies here at the moment , but also as well I'm sure you'll link it in the show notes and so on .

Practical Guide for Shift Workers

Speaker 1 8:29

And the reason I wrote this book , roger , is because , as someone who has been in business and as someone who's been in the academic circles as well , I find that you either can get these published papers , which a lot of times will refer to laboratory-based studies or studies in weird environments that may not be applicable . And then the other thing is , if you go and look for a sleep book , you get very technical sleep books . We've got books that are a foot wide of 5,000 pages and lots of stuff in it , and even with a PhD I can't decipher half of it . And then you get some people writing some books that are quite interesting but can be quite lengthy , and they're very good books . So Matt Walker's written a very good book on why we sleep .

Speaker 1 9:59

One of my core researchers and colleagues , russell Foster , has written a book called Lifetime . These are great books , but unfortunately , shift workers are time poor . They want to get down to the nuts and bolts . They don't want to be skimming through 300 or 400 pages to find out what should I do to get ready for night shift . When should I have caffeine ? What should I eat ? What's the best roster ? What should I do for having early morning commute ?

Speaker 1 10:18

A lot of these books don't actually hone in on this , and so that's why we wrote this book A Guide for Sleep , health and Shift Workers . Now the book Roger is very focused on question-based like does cannabis help me sleep ? Does alcohol support sleep and recovery ? So these kind of general questions , what's met around this ? It's broken into several sections but it's nice and easy to read . It's got scientific insights , it's got practical applications , lots of visuals , lots of graphs , durable paper as well , because we know shift workers they're going to be in and out of harsh environments . It's got soft cover , but nice and hard as well , kind of glossy , so you can wipe the dirt off if you're in a mining operation or in a factory and so on , and the paper's pretty tough as well . So we wanted to build something that people could actually use as a guide and they could pull out their bag to ask some questions Now .

Speaker 1 11:06

Predominantly , it's based around what we call individual factors or individual responsibility . We often talk about this in fatigue management . There's organizational design , so we know if companies design really poor rosters , that it may induce fatigue to the person . So , whilst this does cover some of the organizational stuff around designing rosters , it is very heavily focused to the individual , on what they can do to help them cope with shift work . And I think when you go through it , roger , when you get your copy , you will see that there is many , many similarities between some of the information that you put out on Instagram and on your podcast as well .

Speaker 2 11:38

That's what I absolutely love . Now , I'm flying a bit blind here , because you've got all the knowledge on the book and I'm busting to actually read it , because you just mentioned my favorite author of all , that's Russell Foster , and I've got his book over there and it is literally a fascinating book . In fact , I've bought a copy but I listened to the book because he's such a great storyteller and he tells a story so beautifully , doesn't he ? Yeah , I highly recommend this to everyone . My second favorite book is the Light Doctor because , like you have just explained , martin writes the book to the layman , not to the scientist , because the scientists already know it . It'd be like you writing your book now to another scientist . They already know all this stuff . Yeah , exactly , you're writing a book to Nurse Jen so that she can pick the book up , she can have a read .

Speaker 2 12:29

Ask the question , like you've just pointed out in the index . Here's the question oh , what's the answer to that ? Oh , I can go and read that Shift workers are chronically fatigued and they are very , very pragmatic , aren't they ? So they just want to know . This is the problem . How can I solve it ? And it sounds to me like you've actually addressed that through this book . What's actually driven you to focus on this research in this shift working world , as in to get to the stage where you've written this ? What are you hoping to achieve by doing it ?

Speaker 1 12:59

Well , I suppose a couple of things you said there , roger , and first of all , I think it's good to acknowledge that there is other good authors out in the field as well , but , like you said , this is really much a practical guide . This really drills it down . But the other thing I want to say as well this is an evidence-based book , so if someone picks this up and goes , oh well , I don't believe that's the way I should manage this . There's over 240 references in the back right , so you can see everywhere where we've sourced our information and we've been very , I suppose , deliberate on that to show that we're not just making this up , that this is not just sort of what's in my head and what I think should be happening . This is based upon the best research that's currently available , and so if you are inclined to go and get more information , you can . The other thing as well is we've got QR codes throughout the book that link back to our website with seminars , podcasts , blogs , all sorts of information , so it's probably near 400 hours of content that people can go and look at behind the scenes if they wish , and that's not going to disappear because it's on our platform and linked to the book . What am I trying to achieve by the book .

Speaker 1 13:54

I'm really trying to help frontline shift workers . We do a lot of education , we do a lot of

Essential Guide for Shift Workers

Speaker 1 13:59

design of shifts and rosters , fatigue management systems and so on , and I really empathize with people who do shift work because a lot of times this stuff is passed down through the wise old Gandalfs . We'll call them shift workers . Now some of the wise old Gandalfs . It might work for them , but it may not work for you . Some of the wise old Gandalfs . We'll call them off shift workers . Now some of the wise old Gandalfs . It might work for them , but it may not work for you . Some of the wise old Gandalfs advocate drinking alcohol or eating certain foods , or doing this at nighttime , and maybe it's worked for them or they think it's worked for them . Sometimes we actually get bad advice as we go along .

Speaker 1 14:30

So what I really want to do is demystify all that stuff , give people a practical guide that they can put in their pocket and use it . I would love , in five years time , to walk into a manufacturing environment or a mining company in oil and gas and see this book in tatters are coming out with someone's bag and then waving at me and going , oh yeah , I marked up here and I did this and I did that and did the other . That's hopefully what I can go . This needs to be a practical guide , like people walk around with , like you know , marcus aurelius's meditations with notes in it . That's what I want to see that book in bits and in tatters , where people are actually using that and referring to it .

Speaker 1 15:01

And the other thing as well is we want to keep updating this book yearly , so we're giving out the best information . So you're going to see more versions of this coming out . We're going to stay ahead of the research , we're going to stay on point and we're going to give people the best information they can . But really the goal here , roger , is to support frontline workers doing shift work . We're not here to appease people designing rosters . We're not here to tick a box for leaders and managers because sometimes they may be designing it wrong . It's here to help the shift worker manage that as best as possible within those circumstances .

Speaker 2 15:28

Boom , that's the classic line , because this is exactly what the shift working world needs today , ian , because I know from my own experience . I started shiftwork 40 years ago . I started in 1984 . And I can tell you , over 40 years , not once was I ever even handed a flyer on how to go about doing shiftwork . And for someone who's worked in the police here in Victoria for 40 years , that's a tragedy in itself that no one has taught people of my ilk era anything about shift work .

Speaker 2 16:04

And I can tell you categorically they're still not . They might have a very short lecture . There needs to be a shift worker's handbook , and what you've done is you've basically written , even though it says sleep and shift work . We all know , once you get your sleep right , everything else falls into place in a very , very big way . Now I know this is your key area of research and you're not going to argue with that , and we'll get into that as we go on . Because I think it's such an important point , because shift work research is very new , isn't it Like ? It's not something that , like circadian science , is only fairly new , and shift work's new too .

Speaker 1 16:41

Yeah , and we actually talk about that in the book . We have a brief section on . You know , we call it basically a brief guide to the history , a brief history of sleep science in humans , and we talk about that and then basically how electricity and shift work and so on , and actually , you know , I spent some time with Martin in Boston as well years ago no-transcript , I think , I'm going to say in 1982 , roughly , that paper came out and so Martin has been a leader in that field as well . And you're dead right , roger , is that there's very little being done on this . But as you move forward you can see that this research is increasing . But now what we're starting to see is that different industries within that shift work area are starting to look at this and go oh , I give a symposium . Last week at the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygiene , we had a symposium that was cheering and in my introduction talk to it , I spoke about the extractive industry , so mining , oil and gas . And when we look at mining specifically , despite it being a multi-billion dollar industry around the world , there's less than eight published research papers that actually tackle fatigue . Yeah , and they're very poor studies and I've been involved in a number of them , right . So , and the reason being is that there , you know , there's not enough money to do research , or the government isn't giving money for research , or neither are oil and gas companies or mining companies publishing out what they're doing . So we still have a long way to go . You know there's to do in this area . The encouraging thing is that more people are doing that . I think , also as well . On .

Speaker 1 18:21

This Waltz's book is about shift work , and many people , by the definition of the International Labour Organization , would be shift workers . If you work outside of the hours of nine to five , and even as a professional and you're probably the same Roger your days can be very long . You might have to travel , you might have to , you know , commute for work . You may be a salesperson . So this book is actually it's more than shift work for people who travel . Your regular hours have to jump on teams meetings late at night , early in the morning , which is most people these days . I call them like the type two shift worker . They're not on a regular pattern , but they have these ad hoc hours that happen , and this is most of the professional staff . Well , this book is for you as well , because it discusses elements of this as well about how to get your sleep right as well .

Speaker 2 19:07

This is really important because I don't think society today identifies themselves as a shift worker . I think what they do is they think I'm not a shift worker . Because when we say shift work , we think of someone generally a shift worker . Because when we say shift work , we think of someone generally someone who works night shift . So someone who starts at 10 or 11 at night , finishes at six or seven in the morning yet you're a shift worker . But we forget about the person that's starting , like in the media , starting at 4am , 5am they are a shift worker . The person that reads the six o'clock news , that's working until seven or eight o'clock they are a shift worker .

Speaker 2 19:39

We are forgetting about the whole gamut of people who literally are shift workers , and that's what this book's for to help answer that question for that person , and this is what I love about it . We need to understand what is a shift worker . You are a shift worker if you are doing Well . Actually , what is the definition of a shift worker ? You are a shift worker if you are doing Well . Actually , what is the definition of a shift worker as per the science ?

Speaker 1 20:02

today . Well , there's no consensus of what is the one definition . However , the International Labor Organization will say that a shift worker is anyone who works outside the hours of nine to five . Another definition is anybody that works outside the hours of daylight . Yeah , it's a very broad thing . It's like even the word fatigue . If you try and come up with a definition of fatigue management or what is fatigue , go and search Google and you're going to come up with about 2 billion hits coming back at you . So it's really difficult to define what these things are . So I would just say , basically , if anybody's working outside a regular time 9 to 5 , Monday to Friday technically you're going to be a shift worker is working outside a regular time , 9 to 5 , Monday to Friday , technically , and you're going to be a shift worker .

Speaker 2 20:40

So , yeah , I agree with that . I would say anybody that works outside the 8am to 5pm today would literally be , and I think if you work two hours outside of that you can call yourself a shift worker full stop , and I think that's important that people do . And the question that I do have for this we know that this book is for the shift worker , but

Understanding Shift Work Impact and Strategies

Speaker 2 20:58

I note that on the cover of the book that you mentioned organizations . Is this something that would be a handy read for a health and wellbeing manager ?

Speaker 1 21:07

I think it's a must , roger . Actually , it's not just handy , it's a must , because if you don't understand the impact of what's going to happen to other people that you're going to ask them to do something , you could be setting them up for disaster really . Now , I'm not saying that every manager or supervisor or superintendent whatever the title is or shift boss has to be a shift worker per se , but what you do need to do is understand what's actually happening . So one of the things I often advocate I've jumped between health and safety and business improvement roles , and one of the things that the Japanese would say is do a Gemba shift . So it's basically a go , look and see shift . So go and spend some time with the operators on a night shift or an evening shift to see what they're actually going through and the challenges that they have , because I know many people have never done shift work . Then they go out and they do it and they go . Oh god , I feel like this is four o'clock in the morning . How do you get through this ? It's like , well , this is what we do and then . So if you don't understand how they feel and what's happening , I'm not saying again , you have to work shift workbook . At least go and experience it .

Speaker 1 22:00

But this book here will give you some of the strategies around how to support people . The classic one , roger , I see being abused is caffeine . So many people working between three and seven in the morning the leader comes out and is like oh , here you go , roger , I brought some coffee for you . Have a drink Now . Look , I admire that . It's great that the leader is coming out spending some field time with them , checking on them . It's a great way to break the ice .

Speaker 1 22:23

However , the pharmacokinetics of caffeine it could be eight hours before that's out of your system , at least four hours for the half-life . That's going to be impacting the recovery sleep . So maybe to come out with a herbal drink or something different , maybe it's whatever it might be , and we stop caffeine around midnight or 1am , depending on the shift length , so we don't impact the recovery sleep . So things like that are absolute gold that leaders can read that and go oh , I was going out doing that and I thought I was helping the guys but I'm hindering them . Maybe I should tell the guys around that . Or if they want to have pre-start meetings or shift start meetings , you can take snippets from this book and just read them out and just refer to them or make up safety notices from them , and we've got lots of resources on our site that people can basically rip off and duplicate and just use this .

Speaker 2 23:08

So it's a must guide , really , I think , for anybody designing rosters , and I think it's really important that people do in that role as you have quite rightly labeled that people . They need to be aware of what the issues are , so that they are aware of them , so that they can address them , and I think that's really good A book that you've put together . Just to be clear to the people that are listening , when you say that you've written a book and it's evidence-based , you leave yourself wide open to everybody , don't you ? Because they all want to come at you and go oh , what about this paper ? And what about this paper ?

Speaker 2 23:41

A book takes a lot of researching and a lot of fact-checking and a lot of background and credible , not just I'll pick a paper that suits my agenda . It's about getting all of the literature together and combining all the literature , and this is what I love about it . When I put out an evidence-based something and people go , no , that doesn't work for me , it may not work for you , but this is what the literature actually tells us . Now , the research is always evolving in this area , and especially over the last 20 to 30 years in shift work world . So what do you see as one of the most significant findings in the shift world of our recent times , and when I say recent , the last 20 years or so .

Speaker 1 24:18

Yeah , so the one I think well , it's probably in the shift world of our recent times , and when I say recent , the last 20 years or so , yeah , so the one I think , well , it's probably in the last six months really , because I just came back from the Australasian Sleep Down Under meeting that we have every year . That was on the Gold Coast in October , and one of the biggest things I've seen there is actually and you would have had Martin on discussing this is the research around light . Yeah , this one , for me , is absolutely fascinating because there is so much stuff . So we've got this work happening with Sean Cain and Andrew Phillips from Flinders University and they're

Impact of Light on Shift Workers

Speaker 1 24:44

doing some work here around individual profiles or sensitivity to light . So , whilst we see caffeine being a sort of a challenge for people doing shift work , and we know that people respond different to caffeine , we're now starting to see research coming out showing that people respond different to light . Oh , yeah , so the impact that light has on people is absolutely fascinating . There's other research coming out as well , roger , showing that different light sensitivity and spectrums and so on can actually impact your risk-taking behavior . Wow , okay . So Alicia Landers has been looking at this and she presents some data on this around the light .

Speaker 1 25:17

I'm butchering this so you'll have to maybe refer to this , but basically this light can actually make you take more risk-taking behaviors , and we see this in casinos as well , isn't it ? Absolutely , we don't see the clocks up . We see lots of airflow , lots of bright lights , lots of stimulation . Oh yeah , I'll just do a little bit more . A little bit more . A little dopamine hits .

Speaker 1 25:35

So there's stuff around this as well that's happening . Or Melissa Burge has been doing this drift diffusion model , how people are making decisions . I think this is really interesting . So light . And then also , I think there's getting more kind of into stuff around control rooms as well , because many companies now are evolving to use control rooms and we're going to have artificial light in this . But there's also decision-making and one of the guys that works for me , tim Smitty , who co-authored a book with me . Tim's done a lot of work in this area as well , looking at e-sports and control rooms and basically localized sleep and attention and so on . So these areas to me cognitive function and light are two real interesting areas . I think that's going to come out in the next few years .

Speaker 2 26:14

I totally agree . See , I'm team Martin Moreed . All the way , I found his book mind-blowingly scary at the same time as very enlightening . See what I did there .

Speaker 1 26:25

That was good , wasn't it ? Let's put that to bed , and let's put all other puns to bed .

Speaker 2 26:29

Okay , I like that too . Yeah , well done . Red light impacts us in a certain way . Green light impacts us in a certain way . Yellow light impacts us in a certain way . Yellow light impacts us in a certain way . So it makes sense , doesn't it , that , as human beings , as a diurnal , a normal diurnal creature , we should be out , getting the full spectrum of light outside every single day . But today , we live in an internal nocturnal society as well , which is a massive problem , and it's no wonder that we've got so many health issues .

Speaker 2 27:00

What Martin is trying to push out at the moment is healthy light . I think he's going to be game changing . I honestly think that this is going to be . The biggest thing of 2025 is light . And when you talk about the control rooms , I've literally just joined the Control Room Association , and it's going to be fascinating to watch what actually occurs through this area here , because Circadian Australia is very involved in this as well . We need to start doing things like that . So , so we , as a shift worker , don't have control over the lighting in the environment . You see , this is one of the most significant findings , and in particular , over the last six months , as you've said , but we , as a shift worker don't have control over that , or do we ? What strategies is there that we could put in place ?

Speaker 1 27:49

Yeah , I think the first thing is , if you're a shift worker and trying to sleep during the day is trying to control the light in your sleep environment first of all . So if you're a shift worker , you need to set yourself up for success and one of those things is that sleeping environment . So you can't kid yourself and think , like you know , my light curtains that I bought down the road at XYZ shop are going to work . You might need roller shutters outside , you might need blockout blinds or blockout curtains . You're going to need like earplugs , eye mask , whatever it might be . You need to make that room like a cave , just like you're sleeping at nighttime , you know , cool and dark and inviting . So that's first thing , I would say . The next thing , then , as well , is can you alter the lights in your workplace as well ? Can you turn them down , turn them up ? Can you use this to your advantage ?

Speaker 1 28:29

Now , again , this is going to be a source of conflict , maybe because of light sensitivity , and a lot of people will have different preferences . Can you change the contrast on the screen ? Can you use things like retimers or other types of glass that are going to emit light to you to give you that signal ? So these are all the things that people can do . However , probably a bit like the melatonin and the caffeine and all this , the timing of these is crucial , because what everybody does is to go , oh , this will fix this , this will fix this , this will fix that , and so people are just willy-nilly putting things into their mouth , drinking things and then putting stuff on their face , and they've got no idea about the timing . So each person will need to kind of have a personalized strategy on that , and so it's really key that people actually set that up for themselves as well .

Speaker 2 29:17

How do people learn that , like ? I'm fascinated by the research that we say that there's not really an early morning lark and there's not really a night owl , because the research has shown that if we take healthy individuals out into the bush in the middle of the night no electronic devices , no , nothing . Everyone tends to fall asleep within half an hour of each other and everyone tends to wake up . So there's clearly a light sensitivity there to people .

Speaker 1 29:42

Yeah , I'm going to pick on that study from Enerogics Another study you're talking about , yeah , and that was run by Kenneth Wright in the US . I know Kenneth and he's a very good researcher . But one of the things that we have to extrapolate from that study Like we need to be careful there , because one that was only done for a few weeks , it wasn't done across the year . We've got , you know , different daylight savings , we have different time of the year and so on . We also , you know , I got a huge variation in age as well . So this is where we might see some differences , where shift workers might come up and go yeah , that's how I normally get up , so we just need to be careful about they .

Speaker 1 30:19

Were very young people in that study . I agree with you and I think there's a great message in that about getting healthy light exposure and living more by the light and dark cycle . It's 100% agree with you . But also we just I don't think we can take that and just go . This is what everybody should do . When there's no differences in chronotypes , I think there can be a lot of difference as well with people .

Speaker 2 30:37

Oh yeah , no doubt about it . I know some people that can't and people that I've coached . We've had massive problems with them . They can't wind down , they can't settle , they're not ready . It's just that simple . Not only that , but as we get further , well , so we start to create poor habits and it starts to reset and phase shift our circadian rhythms as well . I honestly believe that , because I've done 40 years of shift work , towards the end of my shift working , I believe that I could go into and out of night shift , afternoon shift , day shift . I just did it as a matter of it was like breathing , no problems . I knew exactly how to go about it , whereas if I said to you you've got to do a week or night shift now , you'd go what ? No , I'm sure our body gets to the stage where it learns it has to adjust or it's going to adjust , because that circadian rhythm is just so desynchronized all the time . I'd hate to think of the health impact , but- .

Speaker 1 31:30

Yeah , I think it's an interesting thing , but I think , by the sounds of Roger , you're someone who was proactively trying to manage it and do it . Unfortunately , I would say that 60 to 70% of shift workers are managing it basically in a reactive manner . They're not proactively . Setting things up and this is something I often say to people is like routine , routine . Routine Routine is boring but it's effective . So if you're going to be a shift work , you need to sit down with your family and your friends and say all right , when I'm doing night shift , this is what happens . When I'm off , this is what happens Because , unfortunately , when we do education sessions or when we talk to people , what they'll turn on says oh , that's all well and good , Ian .

Speaker 1 32:10

Well , I'm doing night shift tonight and I've got to mow the lawns and I've got to do this and take the kids out and blah , blah , blah . You can't do it all . Or when you come off night shift , it's not the time to be driving the kids to school when you are significantly sleep deprived . Or in the mining industry , we see people being away for a week doing seven 12 hour shifts , coming home and then they get told oh , you know , the husband or wife says oh , you can pick up the kids for school because I have them all week that is not the time to be doing that .

Speaker 1 32:37

so you need to set up some rules , and this isn't like a get out of jail free card for people when they're off , but what I'm saying is like maybe the first 24 hours off , like that , is focused on rest . Then after that you can get loaded up with the jobs . It's the same with jet lag as well . Roger a lot of people when the was multiple times on , they get desynchronized for over a week . Instead of having one hard day to resynchronize , they let it last for eight days . So it's the same kind of underlying circadian physiology that's occurring here as well in terms of desynchronization , and I think a lot of people can do a lot of good things to help them with it .

Speaker 1 33:09

But they have to be prepared , they have to have routine and you have to be disciplined , and that doesn't mean drinking every time after night shift or consuming Kobe's once a caffeine , or ordering stuff from Pizza Hut 24 seven , which a lot of shift workers do . So you've got to kind of knock out all those things and nearly think of yourself like the industrial athlete , because you have to get ready to do this and if you don't , you're going to have downstream or long-term negative health impacts . And finally , just on this as well , roger , we've seen a lot of research over the last number of years not to debate about the impact from permanent night shifts and rotating shift works on cancer , but what those studies have never done is actually control for things like design of the rosters , educating the staff the right behaviors , so you can take this into your own hands and go right . I know the risks , but this is what I'm going to do . This is how I'm going to take back control and do this .

Speaker 2 33:58

Oh , I agree , and this is exactly why I'm here doing what I'm doing right now . I watch what you do as a researcher , I watch what Martin does , I watch what Olivia Walsh and people are doing in their own areas . I watch all of that and then I ask people to come on the podcast and share it , because if they don't and they're not doing that what actually ends up happening is all of this valuable information ends up gathering dust in journals , sitting on shelves and doesn't get broken down and spread out in the shift working world as it needs to be . I mean , there's no point in you doing research and then sitting there going well , that's what we found . That's great , it's all in the paper here , it's now in volume five , you know whatever , and it's sitting there .

Speaker 1 34:45

We need people . That's exactly why I'm not a full-time academic right , because and we respect all the full-time academics Great , it's not my path . I and we respect all the full-time academics Great , it's not my path . I never have been and I never will be . I don't want to be Because I think you get caught up in the game of publishing papers and that's the metric there . You're not actually incentivized or promoted to go out and promote that material into the community , so you get a grant or whatever it is . Your metric or marker is to publish that paper . Now there are some great researchers out there doing some stuff and people are starting to move into that way . Oh yeah , a couple of great universities do a lot of stuff outside the uni as people like flinders people at central queensland university central queensland .

Speaker 2 35:21

You're doing great work .

Speaker 1 35:22

Yeah , great people out there and I'm not knocking people are doing that and I'm not knocking the people that aren't doing that . The rules of the game are the rules of the game and people will play by the rules , right , and so it's like anything , and so that's why I don't do . It is because I want to have that freedom to be able to go and help people and do different things in different areas . Now I'm still making a career of it and a living out of it , but it gives me that freedom to be able to push out that stuff . That's why we have the blogs and the website . That's why we have about 150 episodes of the podcast . We've got seminars lots of stuff out there for free .

Speaker 1 35:49

The book is very reasonably priced as well . Oh , it is . Anybody who's written a book as well will know that you're not going to become a millionaire of writing a book . But it's really about how do we get this message out there and how do we support people , because it's really hard to listen to people struggle and to sit with them and give them advice , and then they go oh , I can't do this or I can't do that . Oh , do you have something you can give me ? I'm like this is what this is is to give them the resource to take away .

Speaker 2 36:12

And you can tell in your passion , like I've not spoken to you before . But your passion in this is like people say to me . My passion enters the room before I even enter the room because I am so passionate about helping the shift worker and you say , oh , I've got the blog and I've got this . And it's not that I want to go out and I'm not going to be a millionaire out of it , but the bottom line is it is a business . It's not that I want to go out and I'm not going to be a millionaire out of it , but the bottom line is it is a business . You are actually changing lives by what you're doing , so you're entitled to get paid to do exactly what you're doing there , because you are literally turning people's health around , and I agree with you . I have clients come to me saying give me help and I go right . So this is what we need to do .

Speaker 2 36:53

My coaching

Shift Work Discipline and Organization

Speaker 2 36:53

is literally habit-based , as in setting habits getting early light , getting early movement , meal timing at the normal meal times and just getting that right . They can't get that right and I think this is what you got to do get your routine right , because your body is counting on this routine . Now , whether my messaging is wrong or what it is , people don't understand and they say , oh , I just can't do that in my environment because I'm a nurse or I'm a doctor or I'm a this . Yeah , you can . I honestly believe and I spruik this a lot research of the past has been done on uneducated people that had no idea at all . We are now learning how to go about it and spreading information to help people to go about doing this the right way , and I think that research around shift work can be a lot better in the future , or the results of research will be a lot better . Based on what we're learning today and spruiking out and getting it into the public . Do you agree that we can turn it around ? I'm reading a book at the moment .

Speaker 1 37:52

It's about Margaret Thatcher . Yep , now I know some people are like , oh , margaret Thatcher , but it's pretty interesting . I think the book was called Not for Turning and it was written by one of her private secretaries . And last night because that's why I kind of smiled when you said this the part I was reading about was when she was coming up into't understand how people can't manage it . She said basically it was something to the effect of you can get a lot done when you're organized and you're disciplined around it . That's right , and it's the exact same thing as well , and it's such a good thing to read . There's someone with a family great in his career in politics and she was saying basically , if you're planned out and organized for the week , you can achieve a lot of things . And I think that's the thing with the shift working community . If you're disciplined and have a routine , you actually have a lot of free time . Yes , you do , because you take away all those other things that you're constantly thinking about . So you get yourself organized and then you have a lot of free time afterwards . And I totally agree with you , roger . It's that if you want longevity and shift work , but even if you have irregular hours . You've got a dispersed team . You're managing people online , which a lot of us are doing now . You need to be organized and disciplined . This discipline and planning is more needed now than ever before , I think . Even if you're not a shift worker , I agree , because people's roles have grown and changed so much , and as a leader as well and I'm the same I want to swim every day .

Speaker 1 39:12

I'm trying to learn some music as well . I want to swim every day . I'm trying to learn some music as well . I want to read other things and do other things , but to do that , I've basically got to have my shit in order for the week to allow me to do that , because if I don't , I'm going to be out of control . So I have to set a cadence to my week every time . Now things will change , but how does that cadence change with that ?

Speaker 1 39:29

If I have to travel , if something changes , what can I do around it ? If I'm time poor , maybe I can't go to the gym , maybe I can't swim in the pool , okay , what can I do ? Okay , well , I've got a room I'm staying in . I can do a 20 minute body weight workout in there . You know , I can do this . Oh , I want to be careful this week because I'm traveling . I don't want to eat too much stuff . What can I do ? Okay , I'm going to pick , like a low residue , low fiber type diet that's low in calories . I want to do this , and everybody's requirements are going to be different . Again , you take this information , you take what works for you and you make it work for you , because what won't work for you , though , is all this other stuff . I'm not advocating that people go . Oh yeah , well , I got your bookie and it's great , and I listened to Roger , but you know , what works for me is 12 beers a night .

Speaker 2 40:15

No beers a night . No , it doesn't actually work for you . That is so true . I have to have a glass of wine , otherwise I can't unwind , and I have to come home from work and I have to put the TV on , and I have to have half a dozen beers , otherwise I can't sleep . Oh , gee , and I just think , oh , oh , my ears , my ears . I don't know what to do .

Speaker 1 40:30

It's killing me and I'm not begrudging anybody a beer , but maybe substitute out first . Maybe can I go to low strength or mid strength . Can I go alcohol-free beer ? And I know some people go oh , what's the point ? But I know some guys that were paramedics that said they just started doing the alcohol-free beer and they realized it was a ritual of having a beer . It wasn't a beer itself .

Speaker 2 40:48

I can tell you , ian , that's exactly what it is . I gave up alcohol on the 1st of January this year . I stopped drinking alcohol . I just said that's it , that's enough . It was my New Year's resolution and it's actually stuck . So I've poo-pooed the science there .

Speaker 2 41:03

I find I come in from this studio and go into the house , reach into the fridge and grab my zero beer and I have a zero beer because it tastes every bit as good as a normal beer and it is . It's a sealing of the day . Like I walk out of the studio here , I go inside and I have that beer . You don't have to have the alcohol and we know alcohol severely impacts on sleep and sleep quality and you know that . I know that it doesn't help you to relax . I hope you're enjoying the show . If you are , please don't forget to rate and review once you've finished . This helps the show's reach enormously .

Speaker 2 41:43

And have you got my free e-book the Best Way to Eat on Night Shift ? Well , this is a comprehensive guide to the overnight fast , why we should fast and how to best go about it . I've even included a few recipes to help you . I've put a link to the ebook in the show notes . And are you really struggling with shift work and feel like you're just crawling from one shift to the next . Well , I've got you . If you would like to work with me , I can coach you to thrive , not just while undertaking the rigours of 24-7 shift work . I also conduct in-house live health and wellbeing seminars where I will come to your workplace and deliver evidence-based information to help your wellbeing team to reduce unplanned leave and increase productivity in your workplace . I've put the links in the show notes to everything mentioned . You can find me at ahealthyshiftcom or on Instagram at a underscore healthy , underscore shift . Now let's get back to the show .

Speaker 1 42:47

I'm the same as you , roger . I stopped in 2012 . I took a break for six weeks because I was training for a 100-mile run . Then , after six weeks , I had a couple of beers and I felt so shit . Ready after having a few beers , I took a break for six weeks because I was training for a hundred mile run . And then , after six weeks , I had a couple of beers and I felt so shit , really , after having a few beers , I just decided to take a break indefinitely and that's turned into 12 years and so .

Speaker 1 43:01

But what that has done is given me more energy . I'm sort of in my mid to late forties now and I have like so much energy . I swim nearly

Shift Work and Sleep Disorders

Speaker 1 43:08

20 Ks a week . I go to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and grapple with people , and you know I run a business , I do research and people go oh , look at you , you must be on some sort of speed or tablets . I might not , because I just take away all the stuff that kind of drags me down and lowers my energy and you get all this nerdy natural energy from it . So that's and again , I'm not not going to be having a drink . No , have a drink , but you know , just in moderation and when you need to have it or when you want to have it . But when you're doing shift work at least not on the day shift take it out from after a night shift , because coming back at 6 , 7 in the morning and having a couple of beers before you go to bed is the worst thing you can probably do in your shift work cycle .

Speaker 2 43:45

Oh , diabolical . And what you say is right . You don't knock people for having a beer if they want to , but just try without alcohol and see how you feel . As you said , you did it for six weeks and then you had a few beers and you went . You know what ? Don't need this anymore . I don't know if we can trust an Irishman that doesn't drink , though I'm not sure about that .

Speaker 1 44:01

Roger , I'll put it this way Probably when I was younger , in the military I probably spilled more than you drank in your whole life . So there you go .

Speaker 2 44:07

I've got no doubt about that Very early lesson . Never , ever , take an Irish person on Finish out with an Irish person . Don't ever do it . It's actually massive problems there .

Speaker 1 44:17

I think I burned my credits out when I was younger . I went too hard , too quick . See , I started working actually speaking about weird shift work , roger and people are appalled by this , but I don't mind telling this story . I actually got my first job and was technically probably a shift worker when I was 12 . And my first job was actually working in a bar .

Speaker 1 44:32

So bars in Ireland are very different than here in Australia . They're more like an extension of your sitting room . I had a job when I was 12 , working in a bar on Friday , saturday and Sunday night from 9pm to 1am in the morning as a 12 year old , and I worked in bars all through my teenage years , whilst playing rugby and going to school as well , and then , when I was like 18 , I joined the military . So I think , by definition , I was probably a shift worker by then , and at 15 , I was going to nightclubs . That was 12 or 21 , because I worked in a bar . So people thought I was a lot older . So that's why I probably just burnt out my credits too young .

Speaker 2 45:02

I think one day I might have to have a sit and have a coffee with you and get some of those stories , because I'm pretty sure that there'll be some great stories in all of that too . In my experience 40 years in Victoria Police and that is what I've done . And so in my experience 40 years in Victoria Police and that is what I've done , and I've coached hundreds of shift workers as well Over the past years there's a severe lack of evidence-based education going out into workplaces health and wellbeing . I honestly don't believe . I went on a rant on my Instagram story today about this . There's just not enough credit given to what difference it can make in a shift working environment by providing evidence-based strategies into shift work . Is this your finding ? With what you found , yeah , 100% .

Speaker 1 45:42

So we've got some big contracts with some mining companies to do this type of education . I think it's great that companies are doing this educate their shift workers , because they actually identify and know the risk around this . So , parallel to this , we've actually launched an online course as well . Accompanies the book . So it kind of just parallels the book and goes into some more detail . It's about an hour long and it's got like what we call mini modules in it . It's not like you know slides recorded , it's like a kind of a news story type of thing and there's little cartoons in it as well and basically it goes from like anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes .

Speaker 1 46:14

And I agree with you , roger , because in the health and safety arena we have what's called a hierarchy of control , and many health and safety people would be aware of this . We have elimination of hazards , substitution engineering and PPE , down to administration . Now it can be said that education can be an administrative control , and I would agree with that in principle . However , when you educate people , they can eliminate some of the riskiest behaviors . So , by virtue of the education , you can eliminate some risky behaviors of an organization , and this is why , when you look at Drew Dawson and Kirstie McCulloch's model around defenses in depth against fatigue as well . Education and training is one of those defenses right in the middle as well , because I think , I agree with you , it can be life changing , and I've seen people being diagnosed with sleep disorders after our education who've ended up getting treatment and losing up to 25 kilos to 30 kilos , and it's been beyond life changing for them . And so this is another area as well that I think is understudied and basically has not been valued in the shift work and occupational health communities , and that's the prevalence of sleep disorders . There's over 70 recognized sleep disorders . Australian Sleep Association , sleep Health Foundation and Low Access Economics have done reports on this , and we can see up to 40% of people having sleep problems and sleep disorders , but very little is getting done on this in occupational settings or very few individuals actually know about .

Speaker 1 47:38

And that , roger , is actually one of the sections in the book because it's one of the areas that we know people don't understand . So we've written a section on sleep disorders . We've spoken about sleep apnea , insomnia , shift work disorder . We've even spoken about different treatments . We see things like oh , mouth tape and so all sleep disorders . We've , you know , basically done a bit of myth busting on that . We've spoken about what exactly is insomnia technically versus basically people having some sleep troubles . We've spoken about other relaxation things that people can do cognitive behavioral therapy , yoga , stretching and so on . We've linked out to some meditations that we have on our own platform . We spoke spoke about narcolepsy , periodic leg movement disorder , all these other stuff as well . We've got links out to physicians and student techs and the whole lot , and the goal here is not to frighten people , it's to say to people there is treatment options available and not everything is CPAP . There's so many options available .

Speaker 2 48:31

I read a paper recently it's not that old and I can't remember who's done it and this is unprofessional of me , but it was talking about the so many undiagnosed sleep disorders in the shift working world because people just put it down to I can't sleep on night shift , instead of actually going and seeing a doctor and saying I can't sleep .

Speaker 2 48:52

A lot of doctors now will just go oh you can't sleep , here's the drugs for that and I'll get to that , but here's the medication That'll knock you out , it'll put you to sleep , you'll be fine and you can get that sleep . Instead of actually researching , what is it that's causing the problem ? And there's a lot of in shift working world . You've got to remember we've got probably 20% let's just say 20% of society today that are shift workers . It's going to be a reflection on society that how many of those people are actually suffering from sleep disorders ? Not just I can't sleep on night shifts . I've actually got a diagnosed disorder that if it was treated , the sleep would probably improve 100% there could be underlying health conditions there that people are not addressing .

Speaker 1 49:31

So we've got those behavioral issues that we spoke about , like alcohol , caffeine , not being prepared , there's those things . But then there's underlying health conditions that have to be basically looked at . And it's really weird because if someone had a heart attack or had cancer , they'd be onto it like lighten it to solve it . But a sleep disorder or being overweight or type two diabetes , even people are just like , oh yeah , it's just yeah , that's just like you know , it's whatever , and just sort of brush it off .

Speaker 1 49:55

It's really bizarre . I don't understand that . And unfortunately all these things , as you know , roger , are linked because as the body mass index goes up , it actually increases your risk of cancer . It gives you increased risk of type two diabetes , it maybe leads to sleep apnea , it leads into like all these other downstream effects , nevermind the fact that you're just going to feel like crap for the week , and so this is the thing , that . And the GPs get very little education in sleep . Most GPs get four to eight hours of education on sleep across their whole career . Even someone don't understand about referring to sleep physicians and they're going to give you either a sleeping tablet or , say , to take melatonin and I think did you put up something recently on melatonin ?

Speaker 2 50:33

About the efficacy of melatonin .

Speaker 1 50:35

Yeah , and I think did you put up something recently on melatonin About the efficacy of melatonin . Yeah , and that's the thing . People think that melatonin is just like . Oh yeah , take melatonin and look at you like you're going to clap them . It's like , why are you taking that ? For there's actually one and I think you discussed this on one of your infographs .

Speaker 1 50:45

One , when you take stuff over the counter , we don't actually know what's in it and if you're a professional athlete , there might be something else and it's going to get you tainted and fail a drug test . Two , if you do get it off a doctor , the timing of that is really important because melatonin is not a sleep tablet , it's a hypnotic . It's really only beneficial when you're shifting from one shift to the other , not every single night . Then , if we get into sleeping tablets , the research shows that the efficacy of sleeping tablets is about 10 nights and even people who've been given placebos , sugar pills , end up having improved sleep as well from the sugar pill . What's the point really of doing this ?

Speaker 1 51:25

And so what we do , we want to go with this pharmacological solution because we feel like it's this external thing is easy to take , as opposed to changing behavior . We start getting into kind of like psychology here , because it's about behavioral change and again , I know it's difficult for people . What I'm saying to you is like , stop wasting your money on melatonin and other tablets . Get to the root cause of the issues . Change your behaviors and then , if you're still having trouble , look at the underlying health conditions and address those , because if you can do the health conditions and the behaviors , you're going to be able to manage this .

Speaker 2 51:51

This is why , when people come to me for coaching , I'm convinced that they wait a few weeks and when the envelope hasn't arrived with the magic pills in it to fix the problem , they're quite distressed . And when they realize that we've got to be habit-based , we've got to be rebuilding routine , We've got to build your body with routine as best as we possibly can Light movement , meal timing , all of that Build that routine . You've got to do the work , get the problems fixed , instead of relying on pharmacological solutions , which everybody . What supplements help you sleep ? I haven't put anything to do with supplements in this podcast in any way whatsoever , because I don't want to push people anything . I don't want to make any recommendations for supplements and I know it's covered in the book . But I think one of the biggest problems that people have with supplements is they literally rely on the supplements without having everything else right in the first place .

Speaker 1 52:47

It's funny you said this because a friend reached out to me a few weeks ago and this guy is very well-educated we're talking like PhD level educated and he asked me that same question and I said look , let's have a chat about what's happening . Anyway , it turned out that his caffeine consumption and the timing of his caffeine basically his behavioral aspects were out of control . He was looking for a supplement to fix it and I was like it's not going to happen the supplements as well .

Speaker 1 53:09

Like people are going to jump onto Google Scholar and find a paper that says blah , blah , blah , blah . Most of the stuff on supplements and nutrition and shift work are self-reported , so it's very low down on the scientific evidence , right .

Optimizing Shift Work Performance

Speaker 1 53:20

And so if I'm giving you a tablet and saying , hey , roger , take this , this helps with your sleep , and then let me know if you think it helps with your sleep , you're going to be prepped to give that answer that it helped with your sleep . It's like with electronic devices as well . Electronic devices is another one as well where people just go oh , this is really bad for my sleep and so that's another one to unpack as well .

Speaker 1 53:39

But with the supplements , this is the same thing . If you're a very active person , maybe magnesium is going to help you to restless legs or periodic leg movement disorder , to relax before sleep , especially if you're doing lots of training outside of your shift work environment . Iron supplementation may help with those with periodic leg movement disorder or restless legs . Again , you take a magnesium or a multivitamin or xyz because it's been marketed on a podcast or because it's been come up in your instagram feed and it says this helps with this , that and the other . I'm just not convinced ?

Speaker 2 54:08

no , neither am I . I talk about a creatine , and we know the benefits of creatine , and I always mention vitamin D as well . Vitamin D is even questionable to a certain extent now as well . And omega-3s , I think , for shift workers with cardiovascular disease and the issues with elevated triglycerides in their bloodstream and things like that , I think omega-3s are something that's beneficial . And vitamin D , because shift workers just don't get enough daylight sun to get that natural synthesized vitamin D and this may be even exacerbated , roger , in other environments as well .

Speaker 1 54:38

You know Antarctic , arctic , where people are doing shift work , collection of data . We see mining operations up in the Arctic Circle in Canada , where this happens as well , or even here in Australia , people working underground or working inside factory environments where , especially maybe in Victoria , especially in the winter , they're not going to see a lot of sunlight . So these may help there as well .

Speaker 2 54:58

And they're the only ones . But people ask me about magnesium helps with sleep . Well , not exactly . You know what I mean . Anyway , let's not go down that rabbit hole , because I just feel supplements are not the band-aid that you're actually looking for . You need to heal the wound . You've got to find out what it was that cut you . I think that's the most important thing In relation to supplements . I just say no , get the basics right in the first place . That's all I've got to say on that one there , and I know you agree with that .

Speaker 1 55:26

So , roger , just on that . So people know my PhD was in sleep and performance in elite athletes . So I moved from shift workers into elite athletes for my PhD . Now people will often go , oh , that's so different . Well , it's actually not . It's 95% the same .

Speaker 1 55:39

Athletes travel , athletes train at different times . They are technically , by definition , again a shift worker swimmers , combat sport athletes , whoever it might be and so one of the benefits about doing this is that you go from shift work organizations which are very basic . They want to comply with Safe Work Australia . They want to comply with codes of practice . Athletes want to be optimized . They don't care about complying with legislation . They want to be alert and ready and optimized for game day or competition time .

Speaker 1 56:05

And we've worked with the McLaren Formula One team for three years . We've worked with UFC athletes , major League Baseball pitchers , some of the highest-paid athletes in the world , and all the things that we're talking about here is exactly what we talk about with them as well . The very same thing when I sit with a Formula One driver . I sit down and I talk to them about their schedule and what they can control and can't control , and they invariably go down the same pathways that every other shift worker is what's the best ? Food , the supplementation , but I do the same thing . Okay , let's get this in order .

Speaker 1 56:36

Still having problems ? Let's look at sleep disorders now and let's manage that part as well . And then how do we interact those with the schedule ? And what's happened ? Because sometimes you're just going to get a bad schedule , especially in Formula One 20 something . Races all around the world , travel , fatigue , stress of practice , time zone changes , media obligations basically bang , bang , bang bang for like 10 , 11 months . All of these things play into this as well . So all these factors are the very same . So the other thing I'd say , as well as for shift workers , is if you're grappling with these issues , higher level athletes are grappling with the same things as well . Ufc fighters as well sometimes have to fight at five half five in the morning . The fight card is set up like that to basically appeal to the pay-per-view audience in the US , so lots of people will fall into this category .

Speaker 2 57:21

It doesn't matter whether you're an elite athlete or whether you are a shift worker . You've got to get all the basics right to perform at your absolute best . It's not about band-aids of supplements and things like that . To fix those problems , I've been supporting Retimer with their new Retimer 3 glasses and I noticed that the Socceroos were using the Retimer 3s to actually shift their times and I think a lot of athletes have used them as well and I think it's getting the basics right .

Speaker 2 57:49

Your company does a lot of work in fatigue management , which I really do want to learn a lot more about with fatigue management , because people ask me a lot often what's the best rotation ? Is it best to go forward , Is it best backwards ? Is two days on , two days off , Two days , two nights , four off ? What's the best rotation ? So if you're recommending a shift pattern to a working environment , which you obviously get , people come to you and ask you you're laughing now because you're going to say it depends what's shown to be like the best . If I could strip an environment down and say , okay , Ian , write a roster for this , Bob , we've got to cover 24 seven , what would you ?

Speaker 1 58:26

recommend ? Yeah , so first of all , we have published some work in this area and so we've got these 14 elements of how to design a fatigue risk management system Out of those 14 elements and we've discussed many of these elements already diet , nutrition , sleep disorders and so on . The other component , then , is shifts and rosters . We use a tool called FADE , which is a biomathematical model , as a component of designing the shifts and roster . Now , you're dead right , roger . It's going to depend , because if someone's in a fly-in , fly-out environment in the mining industry , it's going to be very different than someone working construction in Victoria , which is very different than someone in aviation , maybe working for Qantas or Virgin or Sydney , or working for , like you know , queensland Rail . It's all going to depend .

Speaker 1 59:04

So you've got to take into account those aspects . You've got to take into account the industry itself , and what's the precedent and what's the EBAs ? There's so many factors that goes into it . What ? What's the precedent and what's the EBAs ? There's so many factors that goes into it . What are people willing to work and not willing to work ? What's employee preferences or consultation ? So all those factors come in . What I will say is that when we look at this because many people talk about what is the best shift work pattern . We've actually addressed that in the book . That's why I'm laughing .

Speaker 1 59:29

It's like and I know you haven't read the final copy , so I know you haven't read it so we actually talk about what is the best time to start a work shift right , and so that's going to depend on , basically , whether it's a day shift , an afternoon shift or a night shift , and so we discussed that as well . What's the difference between eight hours , 10 hours and 12 hour shifts ? Because many people will think if we do eight hour shifts , it's less risky than doing 12

Designing Shifts and Rosters Effectively

Speaker 1 59:48

hour shifts . So a classic example I always use , as well as what's the cost implications . We have to think about this from a health and safety perspective , a production perspective and a cost perspective , of course .

Speaker 1 1:00:03

And I remember years ago at a conference and someone just said basically , well , if fatigue is such an issue on these oil and gas platforms , why can't they just not work at night time ? And I just said to the person that is the most idiotic comment I've ever had it takes six weeks to shut down an oil and gas platform and you think it's like the simpsons , where just flick off a switch and go home , like that is just ridiculous . But eight hour shifts does not mean you're going to have less risk or be more safer than working a 12-hour shift because , being a fly-and-fly environment , now you need , instead of maybe , if someone's doing a two in one roster , that will take three panels or three crews to run that , because someone's doing days , nights , nights and the other crew is off . If you want to do eight-hour shifts , you're going to need five or six crews to do it . You're going to need five or six level of that accommodation , food , on-cost , so on .

Speaker 1 1:00:42

That may not be feasible for that company to do that , so it might be a cost element . Secondly , you've got someone off for 16 hours a day on a fly-on-flight operation . What are they going to do for 16 hours ? How are you going to keep them entertained their ?

Speaker 2 1:00:54

salary is going to go down as well . Well , that's another interesting point . Don't think about that too . You could say eight hours is optimal , but it's not practical in a fly-in , fly-out situation , while someone's in a camp on a mine site for 16 hours off duty or , even worse , on an oil and gas platform , where you don't even have the beds , where basically you share beds as in someone's doing the opposite shift .

Speaker 1 1:01:15

Well , here's some practical . I'll read these out to you , roger , because these are some practical applications to think about when designing shifts and roster pattern . So you must take into account if the tasks are safety critical and the timing of those tasks so people may be working on heights , electrical workers and so on . Consultation with the workforce management should consider a shifts and roster system impact on people , production of financial implications such as wages , salaries and cost . If a 12-hour shift system is used , consideration must be given to the frequency of breaks when a shift and the opportunities to eat , hydrate and rest .

Speaker 1 1:01:49

Avoid early morning starts before 6 am . Where possible . Consider workers preparation time and commute time before the commencement of a shift . So if someone's living in ballarat and they have to go for a shift in the cbd back then and that starts at six , they might have to go before AM , for example . Avoid high risk work between three and six o'clock in the morning . This window of circadian law are the welcome as it can significantly increase incidents and accidents . Avoid finishing night shifts after 7am to minimize risk on commuting home . Utilize experts to assist in developing shifts and roster patterns with biomagnetic modeling For shift workers . Avoid or minimize your exposure to night shifts and ensure you maintain a healthy lifestyle or take yourself against the impact of shift work In general .

Speaker 1 1:02:27

Designing a shift and roster system that is forward rotating is best , ie days to nights . Backward rotating rosters may lead to more instance injuries , social , health and business impacts . Consider the workforce's age , demographic and choices if you're designing a shifts and roster system . If you are having trouble sleeping , avoid a back or rotating roster as best , and to assess the impact of sleep loss and performance between back when rotating rosters , you may have to do this with objective measures using actigraphy . Now I've just given you the very quick cliff notes of some of those points in this part , but these are all the things to consider . I also discuss as well permanent night shift , because I know many listeners will be like if I did permanent night shift , it would be better . The research shows that less than 3% of people can permanently adapt to permanent night shift , and even then that may not be actually true .

Speaker 2 1:03:13

So everyone that says I should work permanent night shift because I would get into a whole routine you're saying that less than 3% of people can actually adapt to that , and I believe that totally , because there's no way can you live a nocturnal lifestyle ? You can't , and as soon as that light was to hit your eyes , it's going to reset your circadian rhythm and it's going to confuse things even further .

Speaker 1 1:03:37

And , by the way , roger , when we talk about people who can do it . I'm talking about people that have no other health conditions . They don't have an excessive BMI , they've got full alertness . So there's one thing between existing doing it and performing doing it . And that's a very key point and I have that discussion with people one-on-one . When I see a guy that's standing in front of me and he's 5'10" , 130 kilos , that's not optimization , that's the harsh truth . You are significantly overweight , you look tired and you are not performing . You do it and fear plenty . You're doing it because you need the money and you're doing the right thing and the company loves it and blah , blah , blah , but you are not doing the right thing for yourself .

Speaker 2 1:04:11

No , I agree . You say talk about people that are functioning . I've recently learned and this is my ignorance , and I've done shift work for 40 years but I've recently learned about people using nicotine patches and gums to get through the night . Holy moly , like I'm thinking . What are you doing ? Like because they pick a paper that goes oh , it helps with your cognitive function . What about the impacts of nicotine ? Like it's terrifying right .

Speaker 1 1:04:36

Do you know where this is coming from , roger as well ? And like ? By the way , we might get a little bit political here . I'm all for free speech . I think , with free speech , to combat is better speech and more discussion . I think it's good for society .

Speaker 1 1:04:48

But the other part about this is that people listen to lots of podcasts these days , which is great because there's different ways of getting it . But remember , when you're not paying for the product , you are the product . So a lot , a lot of people , like you know I listened to , like the Joe Rogan experience or Andrew Huberman or blah , blah , blah , and because they sit there or to have a conversation and to say , oh , this is great . The two biggest ones I've seen coming out of these podcasts are people taking nicotine because they've heard it's great for creativity and concentration . The second one is people say , oh yeah , weed really helps you with sleep . I'm like , no , it doesn't . And so basically , what people can't decipher ? Because they'll pull out a research study and then you have to explain the difference between CBD and THC , the non-psychoactive component , and then people are like , oh no , the doctor said like , if you smoke weed , it's great for sleep . Then you've got the whole issues with what's called REM rebound when people stop smoking weed . So basically , the short story is that smoking weed suppresses REM sleep . When you get off the weed , you'll start having crazy nightmares again .

Speaker 1 1:05:45

Again , we discussed that in the book and we link out to some of the work that was done at UWA with Jen Walsh and some of the research she's done there . It's a lot of kind of crap coming out of podcasts for people listening to stuff , and some of the stuff that's come off even Andrew Huberman's podcast and a few others has not been actually perfectly correct . So we just need to be careful around some of this stuff . Many people have spoken about this on LinkedIn , which you may have seen as well . There's actually like it gets a bit kind of squirrely , because I'm not saying I'm the one source of truth and this is the one to listen to , but you need to , I think , take in a few different sources before you make a judgment call on what's best for you , and that's what we try to do is give people information to make that decision of where they want to go .

Speaker 2 1:06:20

Yeah , incredible sources , and I always say this when people come to me and ask me questions , because I'm very critical of some of the people like the Gary Breckers and Rogans and Huberman and Mindy Powell's and Paul Saladino and people putting this information out . And people look at me with my little following and they go . What would you know Like these people have got big platforms . Big platforms not make it to the man , does it at all ? That's right , yeah .

Speaker 1 1:06:44

And so Michael Gratizar from Flinders , who used to be at Flinders but now isn't at Flinders anymore . Michael has spoken , but he's on LinkedIn as well . No-transcript , know about your eyes . Maybe go and look at his research , but in terms of research , no , that's like me going out and talking about diet , nutrition but not having a background in nutrition . Yep , I'm trying to help and I might say some things , but it's not my area and that's why , generally , if I have any opinions outside of my area , I won't use any of my titles , so to speak . So it's basically I go right , this is me as an uneducated monkey over here talking about some stuff , but if you want to ask me about this area or I do research in this specific domain , I'm here for it . We're talking about something different , and I think that's the challenge as well , and I feel sorry for people , because if you don't know how this all works , you think that someone who is reputable or a professor or a PhD is giving you the right information . They may not always be giving you the right information , and also it might be an animal study or a lab-based study which doesn't actually apply out to your environment . Now , big correlation studies are the same as well . We have to take them with a degree of skepticism .

Speaker 1 1:07:58

The classic example , roger , is a personal example from me , which was a number of years ago . I had lots of stomach issues , ended up getting

Optimizing Night Shift Performance and Recovery

Speaker 1 1:08:04

diagnosed with Crohn's disease . A very mild form of it Was able to basically eliminate it over a couple of years using a low residue diet like what we use in fighters for weight cutting , but that was basically reducing a significant amount of fiber . People would get mad at me because I wasn't eating salad . I'm like wait , no , it doesn't work for me . It might work for you , there's a purpose , but you need to be eating this . No , I don't . And so I went back . I had a colonoscopy . Like a year and a half later , crohn's all gone .

Speaker 1 1:08:31

So , basically , for me , the reduction of fiber increased my energy . Keeps me . Increase my energy heaps more healthier , wasn't getting bloated , wasn't getting sick , had better energy . That works for me and the realms diet , nutrition and sleep is the same thing as well . We're not going to have one size fits all . We've spoken about types of shift work , chronotypes , age , the type of job preferences all these type of things you have to take into account , and that's why , in the book and on our online platform and on our stuff , we're trying to educate people . We're not training people , we're educating them . There's a subtle difference there . Training is to a competency where we say do this , do that , do the other , and you can go and do fatigue management training to be a commercial driver and I'll tell you about the rules when you should have a break , the hours of breaching a certain hours and whatever might be . This is education . We want people to change their lives through this stuff and have a healthier existence .

Speaker 2 1:09:23

Yeah , and that's exactly why I'm here doing what I'm doing , because I've got to be honest with you , and I've said this before on my platform my superannuation is quite healthy .

Speaker 2 1:09:33

I could walk away and live and retire forever in a day . I don't have to do this . But I do this because I've identified the problem and I'm very passionate about bringing the research into educating people to make sure that they're aware that this is the best way to go about it , because my observation is and it's not their fault and I say this all the time but shift workers are self-sabotagers because there's no education . But I want to educate them in relation to doing that . Now , your employers just told you and I know you're the boss of your own company , but your boss is going to turn around and tell you now that you've got to start four nights of night shift and you're starting this Sunday night and your night shift starts at 10pm and it finishes at 6am , because we're one of those good employers that don't employ people beyond seven , right ? So what are you going to focus on as a priority and how are you going to go about that , knowing that this night shift is coming for four nights ?

Speaker 1 1:10:25

Again , roger , you preempted one of the parts in the book . It's almost like I've read it , isn't it ? Well , again , I know you haven't . So basically , how do I manage to transition to night shift , between and post night shifts ? So again , a couple of things here . Just highlights on this .

Speaker 1 1:10:40

Sleep optimization often gets called sleep banking . Now , that's a source of debate in the scientific community . So we use sleep optimization , basically focus on getting good sleep in the 24 , 48 , 72 hours before . If possible . Can you adjust your sleep-wake behaviors ? Can you sleep in a little bit longer , get up later , go to bed a little bit later ? If you can do that , maybe even just an extra hour might help you to get into that routine . Can you use napping before the first night shift in that circadian low in the afternoon between one and four o'clock ? Can I get another 20 or 30 minutes here to do that ? Also , we talk about napping in the forbidden zone , which is between roughly five and eight o'clock at night , or six to nine o'clock , which is the hardest time in a 24 hour period , but when you're on night shift it's different , isn't it ?

Speaker 1 1:11:21

But some people rather try to have a nap after dinner before doing their night shift and they go to bed at six or seven and go oh , I'm starting at 10 tonight , I'll try and get two or three hours , and then they go . I can't sleep . Well , you can't because it diet nutrition as well . We talk about snacking on night shift as well , as opposed to having big , large , heavy meals Charlotte Gupta's work we refer to here from Central Queensland University . We talk about physical activity as well and social connections . Then , between each night shift , what to do around caffeine , alcohol . Maybe you want to be a biphasic approach to sleep . So , in other words , you come off night shift , you might sleep from 7 am to about 12 , get up , have some lunch , maybe go for a walk . Then you might go back and have a half an hour , an hour nap in the afternoon .

Speaker 2 1:12:07

I've always done that , my whole career .

Speaker 1 1:12:09

I've done that Perfect and so we're still getting a good , you know , seven to nine hours in that time off . We talked then about how to maintain alertness on night shift recovery now after final night shift because you want to get back and have some time with your family and some general strategies to support you as a shift worker as well , and we talk about all those things that we've spoken about here as well . So again , roger , it keeps coming back . We discussed at the start of the podcast is about getting a routine and getting discipline and basically getting that in order , and I think the other thing is what I've said to people is , once you get that routine in order , sit down with your family and inform them as well . They can't read what's on your mind . Everybody has to be on the same team here if you're going to do this . So get disciplined around this and get planned .

Speaker 1 1:12:46

The other thing as well is which I don't know if we spoke about this in the book and this might be one for version two and even I do this on a Sunday . My wife and I and we got no kids and no real kind of defined shift work . We often do meal planning or meal prep , so then we don't have to think about that during the week , because sometimes the days get longer . You're at , like you know , half six or seven o'clock and even like , oh God , what do we have for dinner ? Blah blah , that meeting went over . Because I often have clients in the UK , I could be up in the morning at half four to go swimming .

Speaker 2 1:13:12

We just get takeaway and then decision fatigue comes into it and shift workers suffer horrendously from decision fatigue . I love that you do that . We plan ahead and , like you say , this is where failing to plan is planning to fail , and we talk about this all the time . And if you and your wife , you have a day where you go right , what do you want ? What do you want ? We've got this sorted , everything's sorted , everything's going well . You know , when you get up on Monday , you go for your swim , you come back , you know what your breakfast is ready , everything's organized .

Speaker 2 1:13:41

And I love this , because this is one area that I really address with shift workers myself , and that is the decision fatigue . They feel incompetent because they're outside work and they actually can't think what they want for dinner . What they don't recognize is they're totally competent in their jobs . They're doctors , they're nurses , they're police , they're paramedics , they're totally competent . What they haven't identified is and once we label it , then they can understand it they don't feel like such a twat because they literally are decision fatigued . They've made so many decisions and their brain is mushed by the end of it , whereas if you open the fridge and the food's there , you're ready to go , aren't you ?

Speaker 1 1:14:21

yeah . So , roger , one of the things that people who may have been in the military might be like this as well . So obviously , you know I said I spent like five years in infantry unit and so

Organized Lifestyle and Research Enthusiasm

Speaker 1 1:14:28

one of the things like as a recruit you get told is like how to pack your bag , and it seems really stupid , right , but when you're out somewhere in the middle of the night and you take your backpack off and you're like right on the right-hand side of my backpack if it's this way , I know my knife fork spoon is in there , my cups in there , my sleeping bags in there , my socks are there . So I know I can get to it really quickly . It gets down to the fact of what's in your left pocket , your right pocket , where your combat equipment , fighting order , where your ammunition is , where your snacks are . So you don't have about it and so this often gets called . I think dan john the strength conditioning guy spoke about . This is like what does a shark do ? A shark is just on autopilot right , just cruising around like eating food .

Speaker 1 1:15:04

And I'm the same now , even down to my wardrobe . It's generally black or navy t-shirts , because I know other colors really don't suit me . Don't have to think . I got polo shirts for work that are black or navy . I've got navy shirts for work that have the logo on them . I got these , these boots . I got like three different pairs of Warren Williams boots that I just used . Like I got this suit , this suit , this suit . I have it down to like these kinds of things and then I take all the decisions out of it so I can free myself up to do all the other fun things I want to do Learn how to play the piano , go for a run , go for a swim , go to jujitsu , read a book , walk around around watch Yellowstone , like whatever it might be because doing all this other stuff is actually boring as batshit and really annoying . So get it done , get it sorted , and then you're freed up and then you can actually enjoy your time off .

Speaker 2 1:15:45

And then you do enjoy your time and , once again , that's your life , isn't it ? You've ingrained this into your own DNA now . So , therefore , when people look at you and go , how the hell do you go to BJJ , go for a swim at 4.30 , run your business , do social media posts , do talks ? How do you do all that ? The bottom line is I'm organized .

Speaker 1 1:16:07

And the other thing Roger as well , which I will have to admit , and I know some people can't do this . I found an area where I'm very passionate about and it doesn't feel like work , it's a pure luxury , and I know that and that's one of the biggest things I've been blessed with in my life over the last 10 years doing something I love . That's actually how I went back to my PhD . My wife said to me on holidays in Singapore , lying by the pool in a hotel , and I had a very good job in a mining company . She said , no-transcript , didn't you just do that ? And I went oh , that was the decision to do a PhD , and so sometimes the answer is so blatantly obvious and it's so silly and easy to do , and I took the opportunity and did it . I have a great time and I love the people I work with . The people in the business are brilliant . I get to research with some great people like myself and Russell Foster . Russell was my PhD examiner .

Speaker 2 1:17:08

Oh , was he ? Yeah , yeah , I was absolutely gutted . I missed him in Adelaide because I'm such a fan . I've reached out to try and get him on the podcast , but there's been no response . He's very very busy .

Speaker 1 1:17:18

Yeah . So Russell , I chaired a shift works in poison . Russell spoke at an outlet last year . Russell's on a meta-analysis with us at the moment looking at electronic devices . He's got a new book coming out on light . Oh , okay , I'm sold . Yeah , I think he's wrapping up the last chapter before Christmas . I spoke to him last Thursday and then after that he'll have a bit of time . But yeah , Russell is absolutely fantastic a researcher and a great writer . As you said earlier on . I get to work with all these great people and there's lots of other people as well that I've worked with , and there's too many and I can't name them all , but anybody I've been on paper with , it's always been brilliant and I'm so lucky to be able to do that , and you take something from every single person you speak to in the industry , because and this is what I love about it so much coming from police is I'm quite happy to talk about it now .

Speaker 2 1:18:02

But it became such a negative , toxic environment that now , moving into this area here , getting to speak to people like yourself , having conversations with Charlotte Gupta , Dr Olivia Walsh , over at the University of Minnesota , with the Arcus Shift I communicate with Olivia , just dealing with all these people and having the respect for them , with what they're doing and getting their information out there and learning from them it's such a buzz .

Speaker 1 1:18:27

I think some of those people you said , roger , are the people to watch , because some of those early to mid-career researchers are absolutely brilliant . We sponsored have done for the last couple of years the NEST Fest , which is like the network of early career researchers in the state community in Australia , and I am blown away with the younger people that are in their sort of 20s and 30s , early to career , mid-research , up to 35 , about their ability to experiments that they're doing , their ability to communicate in the scientific community , their ability to communicate outside , like I think , and whilst I admire people like Russell and Martin and so on , the new generation coming through are absolutely . I love going to their talks at the conferences because they're unbelievable and the way they can manage . You know their talks and the audience and the questions it gives me . Actually , I'm really looking forward to what's going to happen in this where in the next 20 or 30 years these guys enthuse me like no end to see what's happening .

Speaker 2 1:19:18

I went to the chronobiology conference in Brisbane when you held it in Brisbane . That was when Tracy Slatton spoke and Charlotte Gupta . I met Charlotte the first time and listening to Tracy Slatton talking about the Qantas research that she'd done the Sunrise Project I found that interesting . I actually called her for lunch and spoke to her about the Antarctic work that she was doing with that as well . These people are amazing . They are absolutely amazing with what they're doing . They only get what ? Is it 20 minutes to talk or something like that at the chronobiology conference .

Speaker 1 1:19:49

Sometimes At the chronobiology one because we sponsored that the last couple of years . Those talks are anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes . At the Australasian Sleep Association you can get as low as three minutes .

Speaker 2 1:19:59

Oh no , jeez , you've got to get a quick message out for that . I couldn't go to Adelaide . I really wanted to go to Adelaide and the next one . I'll definitely be fronting up for the next one because I learned a lot out of it and I think light was going to be very topical and I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out about the light . I think I've got a handle on it , a pretty good handle on it . But yeah , just a couple of quick questions to finish off with , because I'm very mindful of your time and I'm so grateful . But what are your thoughts on the swing shift , the quick changeover shift ? You kind of mentioned it before when you were talking about night shifts . This is very common

Addressing Challenges of Shift Work

Speaker 2 1:20:29

, particularly in nursing , and , personally , it's got to go . They have to get rid of these swing shifts and quick changeovers .

Speaker 1 1:20:37

The answer is I don't know , roger , I really don't know . The evidence is mixed on it and so there's some evidence around . Basically , quick changeovers are good or long , slow , rotating shift work like a week a day , a week of afternoons , a week of nights . So , for example , I know that in places like Melbourne from my practical consulting work on the ground , people like the quick changeovers . In Melbourne particularly it's probably the city I see at the most in they want to do like two days , one night and then have three off . They love that sort of like two or three bang , two or three bang , two or three bang and gone , whereas in Western Australia , northern Territory and Queensland they want like a week on a week off , two weeks on two weeks off . So it's very much like this kind of narrative that gets localized or regionalized . I don't know what the impact is from that . I haven't seen any and there may be great studies on it . Please send them to me if anybody has them . But again , I don't know about the benefit .

Speaker 1 1:21:27

The challenge I see in nursing , particularly from doing a project in Melbourne recently , is that they might do two days , one night , or two days , two nights and four off . The problem is Roger is on a time off , they're doing overtime shifts and that's the biggest problem that needs to be addressed before we even talk about the structure of the roster , because I found that probably 80% of companies actually have a well designed roster , but it's a game that people play outside of it because they're doing overtime shifts to get double or treble time , adding on a few hours , and all of these things lead to fatigue . Now that could be driven from staffing as well if there's not enough staffing . So I'm not blaming people , it can be blaming from staff down to the lowest staffing level . So if we don't have enough people , we're going to have to have overtime . But this is what can lead into the problems and again , in Melbourne , it's the biggest culprit I've seen as a city Totally Very , very short staff .

Speaker 2 1:22:14

But the people that I coach and I talk to about this situation is and this comes back to what we were talking before about psychology in this nurses they feel guilty about letting their team down and if there's overtime going they will work it , and that's the same worldwide . I know that from people that I've coached and they do have to stop because , like you have quite rightly pointed out , the roster can be a really good roster and once you start adding those variables in of your own selfish shifts because you feel guilty for not letting the team down , then you're going to have problems and working these double shifts has got to stop .

Speaker 1 1:22:50

Just on that topic because I want to address this one . I want to just pick on something . You've said Double shifts . I totally agree with you . The other one as well , in terms of the quick rotation , is when people and this happens in nurses and other areas people might do an afternoon shift from 4pm to midnight and then they have to come back in the next morning at 7am to do a day shift . If you're talking about that , that is high risk Because by the time you get home , have something to eat and try to sleep and come back in , they're virtually getting three to four hours of sleep . That , in terms of quick rotation , is bad and that's technically backward operating roster that we do not recommend because you're going from afternoons back to this . If anything , you should be going on to nights to next night , nearly 20 something hours off . So that's a backward rotating roster and I have not seen any evidence that promotes that .

Speaker 2 1:23:35

No , and I totally agree with this , and sorry , when I actually asked the question , I actually meant the nurses call it a swing shift . Finishing at 11pm or midnight and then having to be back at 7am in the morning has to stop . It's so highly dangerous . The nurses do it all the time . I know in the police we used to do that . We used to do seven nights , a night shift , finish at seven o'clock in the morning and then we would start again at three o'clock in the afternoon to try and get us back into sync .

Speaker 2 1:24:03

You could not function on that afternoon shift . Now they've got rid of that . Now it's a recovery day to get over it . And the way people attack that . Some people go the whole day without going to sleep so they've been awake all night . They stay awake all day so that they can sleep again during the day . I think that's diabolical for their health , probably getting in cars and driving places as well , not realizing the micro nap that can actually occur . It's really bad , and so I'm glad we're on the same page that the swing shift and quick change has to go .

Speaker 1 1:24:33

Medications for sleep yes , no , I'd say no , and the first thing I would do with individuals if I was working with them , I'd rip that out straight away . Get the behavior routine in place If you want to get sleep medication like temazepam and these other types of things . So medication has its use under doctor or physician supervision when needed . Things like modafinil for excessive daytime sleepiness or narcolepsy Sleeping tablets maybe to manage to change over not every single night in extreme circumstances , with people who maybe shift work disorder . But this just going to the GP and getting to Mazepan or other sort of sleep meds . No Address the root cause . It's like constantly going and getting some medication for type 2 diabetes when really we know if we just lose the weight we're going to solve the problem . So let's get to the root cause and solve the root cause .

Speaker 2 1:25:18

Yeah , I totally agree with you , and doctors are too quick to prescribe medications . Oh , you're a shift worker , you poor thing . Yep , no problems here , I'll give you some temazepam , I'll give you something to help you to sleep . But I also know that there's a lot of nurses and a lot of people that are shift workers that take medications as a matter of course , just medications as a matter of course , just to sleep , because they're on night shift . And that has to stop because you're not sleeping . And that person that comes in at on night shift that night and goes oh , I got 80 hours sleep today , it was fantastic , you think what . And they go oh , yeah , I took half a rest of it , really okay . And they're the ones that can't stay awake at three , four o'clock in the morning because they haven't slept , they've've been unconscious .

Speaker 1 1:26:00

No , I totally agree with you . Again , solve those behaviors .

Speaker 2 1:26:03

Is there anything that we haven't discussed so far that you'd like to actually throw in ? I'm actually obviously I'm going to be putting the links to the book in the show notes , because I'd imagine that by the time this is out , when can we expect ?

Speaker 1 1:26:14

to see the book . Today is the 16th . We're recording this in December , Currently in the transit tracking . The books are going to be delivered here on the 19th and then they'll be shipped out in Australia For any listeners overseas . It will be available on Amazon as well shortly , so people can order overseas as well , and it will be an ebook as well , coming out in a few weeks if people want to buy the ebook through our website or then on Amazon not for the Kindle version as well .

Speaker 1 1:26:36

Look , Roger , I think we've covered everything . I think there's lots of things we've covered . We've hit on many topics here . I would just encourage people , like

Shift Work Strategies and Resources

Speaker 1 1:26:42

you know , obviously we're talking about the book and part of it's plugging the book , but if you don't want to buy the book , head over to our website , Sleep for Performance , listen to the podcast , read the blogs .

Speaker 1 1:26:52

We have three years of seminars we did during COVID to give researchers a platform . We have lots of stuff over there . You know we're more than happy to have people use that and share it within their organization freely . That's what it's there for . And if you do want to come and do some work with us , we're at Melius Consulting M-E-L-I-U-S and that's where we work with people around designing shifts and rosters , education , fatigue risk management systems , general risk assessments and integrating this into your safety management system . We are pracademics , so we take that academic stuff and put it into practical environments , so we have lots of experience on the ground . And then , obviously , if you want to get the book , go and buy the book as well . We've got some online courses as well . But again , if you don't want to buy that or you don't want to look at that , we've got loads of stuff out there . Just please go over and have a look and feel free to share it out amongst your friends and family as well .

Speaker 2 1:27:36

And if you're a health and wellbeing person that's in an organisation and you're listening to this podcast , am I correct in saying you're the type of people to go to ? If there's an EBA coming up to go right , how can we fatigue , manage what's the best way to manufacture a roster ? Are you those guys or not ?

Speaker 1 1:27:51

Yeah , that's us . So we work with many organisations . I'm laughing , Roger , because I wish people would come to us before an EBA .

Speaker 1 1:27:56

Oh yeah , I know it's not because we want to affect people's pay . It's not that we want to side up with the company to reduce people's pay . But do not build in things into your EBA that might be financially incentivizing people but actually maybe contravening your fatigue management policies or rules or basically incentivizing people to basically wreck their own health . That's what we don't want . These things have to go hand in hand . So three things we often talk about here , roger , when we get to this area we need health and safety involvement , we need people in operations or production and we need HR IR impact as well . So when we develop these things , we need to keep these three things in mind .

Speaker 1 1:28:35

And so I did say at the start of the podcast about education , engineering and in business and in science , and I try to bring all that thinking in so our business brings that practicality in . We're not naive and go oh this is the best study , this is the best roster , just do this , and then not look about the impact on cost . So we often do even cost models for people and go if you do this , this is the impact of your cost . If you do this , this is the impact to your production . We start digging into operational data as well . We are fatigued , we are helped , but we do have other skills as well that we bring in . So , yes , we are the people , but we're there to try and give you the best possible roadmap and strategy forward .

Speaker 2 1:29:08

I think that's really , really important prior to the EBA , because once the EBA is set in concrete , you can't change it . Do you know what I mean ? You can't do anything about it . So I'm working with a company at the moment . They've got their EBA coming up and they're looking at rostering and things like that and it's exactly the right time to be doing it , to find a happy medium talk to the union , talk to the staff , get everyone happy , but making sure that it's functioning really well .

Speaker 1 1:29:35

Just on that , roger as well . That resource as well is for anybody , whether in a union , design need be a HR productivity , it doesn't discriminate . It's not a management philosophy book , so that book will basically be used for any of those things that you've spoken about there as well , so it doesn't discriminate . Anybody can use that , because we're all humans and we all get fatigued and we all can suffer from lack of sleep , so there's no sort of restrictions on that .

Speaker 2 1:29:57

Totally and we will recommend it across and I'll be sharing that . It'll be in the show notes . The link to the book , the links to everywhere that we can find you as well , will be in the show notes for people . I highly recommend that they go across have a look . Go and have a look at the Milius Consulting website as well . The link to that will be in the show notes . Plenty of resources there for people to have a look at .

Speaker 2 1:30:19

Now I have a closer here , ian , which is the question that I ask everyone , and that is if I bought you a holiday house or I built it because we're very grateful for your time here and we've got multi-billion dollars , so I'm quite happy to build you a home anywhere that you want in the world , but you've got to live in it for six months . And the reason why I added that bit in because most people turn around and said to me oh no , I'd live in Perth or I'd live in Melbourne or they'd live wherever they live . So I've said you've got to live in it for six months of the year . Now you can take the boss lady if you want , or you can not take her and just go and have some me time . It's up to happening .

Speaker 1 1:30:53

Another good thing about living there for six months is you avoid the capital gains tax . Is that northern New South Wales On the coast or ? Yeah , I like around Lennox Head , skinner's Head , around there , even Broken Head ? Maybe not so much Byron , because that's become North North Sydney . Any of those other areas , yeah , and if we could roll back time , maybe somewhere around Broken 1985 . I actually got married on the beach up there . I got married on the beach in Lennox .

Speaker 2 1:31:17

Oh , it's got a sentimental value for you then , but surely we've got to build a house there .

Speaker 1 1:31:24

Yeah , I do like it up there . I do find it very peaceful and I do like going there , and so I'll be heading up there again in March , my 20th wedding anniversary . So that's where , if you can build a house there , roger , I'll happily take it , or even a tent .

Speaker 2 1:31:39

Okay , yep , we'll build the design of it , but that's where it'll be going . I'm very grateful that you've given us the time that you have actually given us to talk about not only the book , but to spread your knowledge around the shift work for us as well . We do really , really appreciate it and , once again , as I've said to you , I like to communicate with people like yourself to get the evidence-based information out there , because otherwise it literally just sits there gathering dust , and we don't want that to happen , and that's why you do what you do get it on the road , talk to people , have these discussions . So thank you so much for your time .

Speaker 1 1:32:05

I really appreciate it no worries , thanks , roger , and thanks everyone for listening today to all my uh , what would you call it ?

Speaker 2 1:32:11

just bluffing away no , no , for those in america that are listening to the mad australian and the Irishman and neither of them drink . Good luck with that . Thanks very much , ian . Thanks , roger , and there you have it . That's Dr Ian Dunican . What a great chat .

Speaker 2 1:32:26

I know it went a lot longer , but it's just one of those things that when you get people like Dr Ian Dunican , you literally just talk and pick their brains and learn from them as much as you possibly can for the wisdom that they share with us . And we shift workers are going to have a handbook on how to go about shift work that's been well and truly researched , the literature's been well and truly collated , and you can ask the book the question , you can literally open it up what to do here , what to do there , how do I go into night shift , how do I come out ? And this is going to be gold for us and I even though at the time of recording this I haven't read the book I just know what Ian Dunnigan's work is going to be like , and this will be another one that should sit right alongside the book the Light Doctor by Dr Martin Moore , ede , and also Time Live or Lifetime by Professor Russell Foster , and these three books are going to be the handbooks for night shift . I have no doubt Now if you got any value out of this podcast and I'm sure you did , because I know even I got more knowledge out of it , as I do every time I communicate with these researchers . If you got any value out of it , please take people like you to find the podcast so that we can get evidence-based strategies out there to actually help .

Speaker 2 1:34:05

As I've said , all the links are in the show notes . Go into the show notes . You'll see the links there to Dr Ian Dunnigan and where you can find him and also to get the book , because it won't be pre-ordered . By the time this one's out , it will actually be available and I honestly think it's something that you could buy and literally just accidentally leave on the table of your health and wellbeing manager . So there you have it . Thank you so much for joining in . I really really appreciate you . Thank you for listening . If you enjoyed this episode , be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released . It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on If you want to know more about me or work with me . You can go to ahealthyshiftcom . I'll catch you on the next one .